Pagina's

Tonight, Second Chamber of Dutch parliament (sort of the Lower House, or House of Representatives) has instructed our intrepid PM, Mark Rutte, to NOT agree to any increase (NL) of the budget of the EUnion.

As Elsevier reports, our intrepid PM wanted some room to negotiate a settlement of no more then an inflation correction on the EUnions budget. But a motion by Dutch socialists (PvdA), saying that in these times of austerity, the EUnion should follow suit and any increase on the budget is unacceptable, found a majority in the unlikely form of PvdA, Wilders' PVV, the Socialist Party, the Christian Union and the Dutch Reformed Party (SGP).

In the mean time 2010 saw the salary of an MEP increased with 6.75% (NL), according to Elsevier the largest increase in 257 monitored professional groups.

And now we wait... Another ignominious roll-over is to be expected at the end of a drawn out, mind-numbingly tedious process. Then again, as of tomorrow Holland is re-instating mobile border patrols (NL) by the military police, in what is not exactly a violation, but a technical circumvention of the Schengen agreement. It seems that the credibility of the EUnion is running low, even (and finally!) in the cooped-up circles of The Hague politics. We may be in for an interesting cat-fight.